Senza Eco
by PetitDejeuner
Summary: Just after Voldemort's demise, Hermione dreams of his first rise to power. Unable to leave the Marauders to their deaths in her dream and not yet ready to face her waking life and the rubble of the finished war, she must choose what to live. SB/HG, RW/HG
1. I: Dissonance

"And where there is no Echo there is no description of space or love.  
There is only silence."  
_- House of Leaves_, Zampano

**Senza Eco**

_I : Dissonance_

Hermione had honestly forgotten just how amusing it could be when Ron encountered a spider.

Admittedly, the spiders at number twelve, Grimmauld Place were usually nothing short of terrifying: with their foot-long, hairy bodies and those sounds they made when they scuttled across the floor, Hermione herself usually uttered a not-so-small scream of surprise and disgust when they popped up from a hole in the corner of the floor or around the corner of her mirror in the bathroom attached to the bedroom Harry had graciously offered her as she prepared to retrieve her parents from Australia. But the particular arachnid her red-haired friend was shrieking over was only a common daddy longlegs, perfectly harmless, and so Hermione felt no reservations about laughing as Ron went into hysterics.

Harry, perhaps feeling sorry for Ron, flicked the spider away. "Relax, Ron, it's titchy. You'd think that after facing Aragog you'd work up the nerve to face a daddy longlegs without screaming."

"Yeah, well you'd think that after facing dragons a bloke'd have no problem asking a girl to a dance," Ron countered in an unusual display of wit, smoothing his shirt with shaky hands, "but you had a hell of a time with Cho, didn't you?"

Ginny shot Ron a rather irritated look at the use of Harry's ex-girlfriend's name, but she needn't have worried; Harry moved to sit next to her and placed a hand on her thigh, a light touch. Hermione had noticed recently that Harry'd been giving a lot of light touches, as if only ten days after his death-and-survival he needed to make sure the people he spoke to were not figments of his imagination, not scraps of a dream. "Most of those great hairy things are gone now, anyway," Ginny said. "I haven't seen one since you've been back."

"Thanks to Kreacher's cleaning campaign," Hermione agreed, nodding as she turned the page of her book. It had been so long since she'd read _Hogwarts, A History_… around a year, if she remembered correctly. A long year. "He was so cheered to see that you were back and that the Death Eaters would leave, Harry, I think that he had a felt the urge, finally, to clean." Frowning: "It's terrible that that's his response to actual happiness." She imagined Ron rolling his eyes and didn't bother to look if he really was.

"I don't mind, honestly," Harry said with a lazy grin. "I still can't believe this is my place. My own house, until I decide to hand it down to someone."

"Some redecorating might be nice," Ginny remarked dryly.

"Yeah, like taking off the dead house-elf heads," Ron agreed. "They always gave me the creeps."

Hermione tuned out of the conversation and continued to read. It was nice—so nice— to finally be able to sit down with a book again. After Voldemort had dropped dead at last she had expected the relief and relaxation to be immediate, but that had been wishful thinking. There had been so much to do: funerals, memorials, accolades to award to Snape, whose name's ring of heroism and respect was still strange to hear; countless other things. Over a week after Voldemort had been killed, Hermione felt as if she was still under constant attack. Small noises had her jumping; nightmares, which were frequent, had her pulling out her wand and hexing the opposite wall in the middle of the night; bruises, cuts, and curse remnants left her feeling like half a person. She thought, sometimes, when she turned her head quickly, that she could still smell Bellatrix Lestrange in her hair; when Kreacher served them a meal much richer than soup or bread, she could only pick at it, her stomach used to the limited nutrition of wild mushrooms in a billycan.

She'd have trouble with that last one tonight; what was left of the Order of the Phoenix had gathered by invitation from Harry, who felt like he had a duty to give something to the people who had fought for him, at number twelve, Grimmauld Place to celebrate. At the moment, almost everyone was downstairs and helping Mrs. Weasley and Fleur with a big commemoration feast; but Ron, Harry, Ginny, and Hermione had snuck upstairs for some privacy, which hadn't been easily found for too long.

Hermione had a sinking feeling that she should be happy (and she supposed that she was, in a way) but could never be truly happy again. So many dead, so many gone forever; her chest caved in when she thought of it. Fred Weasley was dead and George would therefore never be the same; Crabbe and Goyle were dead, not that she would miss them; Tonks and Lupin- oh, Merlin, Remus Lupin was dead and his son alone, and so were Sirius and Peter Pettigrew and James Potter. Regulus Black, dead. Marlene McKinnon, dead. So many soldiers cut down in battle or in resistance, and Hermione, bookish Hermione, had escaped through luck and aid countless times. She thought often of how incredible it was that she, Harry, and Ron had all escaped the war alive. The Marauders, she realized with a start, that other group of friends-turned-family, were all dead. What a horrible, horrible time it had been, all of it, both wars. And how surreal that it was finally over.

"Hermione?"

She looked up from _Hogwarts, A History_ at the sound of Ginny's voice calling her name, a bit surprised. She had been reading the same sentence for a fourth time and had been so caught up in her thoughts that she hadn't seen the others move towards the doorway. "What?"

"Mum called us downstairs," Ron told her, a hand on her hair. "You coming?"

"In a minute," she said, turning away slightly. "I… want to finish this chapter, is all."

Ron grinned at her, shaking his head, and kissed her on the forehead, a gesture that warmed her cheeks but not her fingers, which were blue and clutching hard at the book. "Blimey, Hermione, only you…" Ginny laughed and pulled him away from the door frame, but Harry stayed, leaning against the wall, handsome and scarred and baggy-eyed.

"Penny for your thoughts?" he said lightly, and Hermione felt such a rush of affection at his use of the Muggle phrase that she felt her eyes grow watery. Sometimes Harry's acceptance of Wizarding ways and his fame in that world made her forget that he had been raised as a Muggle just as long as she had.

She closed her book and fiddled with the cover, tracing embellished words with an index finger that was missing a nail, a remnant of battle—it looked raw, frightful, a part of her body that was never supposed to be exposed to the dangers of the air. She closed her fist. "I was just thinking about the wars. About how many people died. Do you know… all the Marauders have died, and we're still here."

Harry frowned. "Yeah. I realized. Hermione, it _is_ over, you know? It's all going to be okay now. We've finished."

To Hermione's frustration, her eyes started burning further, a sure sign that tears were on the way. "I know that it's over," she said, "but I don't feel like I've finished much. Fred… Lupin… Tonks… Mad-Eye… _Snape_, I even miss Snape." She gave a hollow sort of laugh, sniffing. "And I feel bad for Malfoy because he lost his cronies, even though he probably doesn't even give a damn. I don't know what's wrong with me." She paused. "You've done so much, Harry. You're the hero of the wizarding world, a strength in everyone's heart, and I don't want to make it sound like I…" Hermione frowned, not exactly sure what she was making it sound like.

"You care, that's all," Harry said, and there was a softness in his voice that made her want to break down and cry harder than she ever had in her life. "Hermione, you may act like a complete and utter nag sometimes, but it's all because you care. You're a very loving person and sometimes it costs you more than you realize. Everyone sees it but you." She looked up at him skeptically and he laughed. "Well, maybe not Ron. But he's thicker than a troll most times, so he doesn't count."

Hermione gave a watery giggle and realized how much her ribs still hurt. "That's certainly true."

Harry bestowed one of those _please-truly-exist_ light touches on her forearm. "It wasn't just me, you know," he said quietly, his voice dark. "I did what I needed to do. You and Ron and everyone else…" Another touch, this time on her neck, where a scar from Bellatrix's knife cut lightly across her pulse: "…you never needed to do any of this."

"Don't be a fool," she murmured wearily.

"When are you going to go find your parents?"

A small sigh. "Two weeks from now. I have the Portkey to Brisbane booked for that Wednesday—I couldn't get one earlier—and I've been reading up on how to ease them back into their memories without brain damage or an onset of neuroses or psychological disorders; turns out," she muttered dryly, "that it's quite difficult to de-Obliviate when memory has been wiped to such an extent. And they'll be furious with me even if their minds are fully intact, I'm sure."

He put his hands on her face and ran his thumbs over her cheekbones; her bottom lip, which she'd been chewing, quivered for half a second. Harry whispered, "I told you, it wasn't just me who did so much. You never needed—"

"Don't," Hermione repeated, her brown eyes frowning at him, "be a fool."

Her sharp tone made Harry grin, and he took his hands from her. "Might be too much to ask. D'you think you'll be okay tonight? People will miss you downstairs."

Hermione closed her eyes, thought of his touch on her neck, swallowed. "Yes," she said after a moment. "Just give me a minute to catch my breath. Tell everyone not to wait up for me, that I'm in the bathroom."

"Will do." Harry moved towards the door. "Oh, and 'Mione, I don't feel like I've finished anything, either. I'd guess that'll take much more time than it has to just feel _done_."

She watched him- Harry Potter, the golden boy, the Boy Who Lived, a hero forever- she watched her best friend go down the stairs, unable to smile because her heart was beating in her throat, beating against that damn scar like a bird in a cage, wings in her throat, feathers in her voice as she coughed to get rid of the feeling. He _understood_, Harry, he really did. He always had. It was a trait that had always made her feel at home around him. Fighting back the wings that still flapped in her throat, Hermione closed her eyes for a moment, willing herself to be calm once more, to face this commemoration, this celebration, like a woman who knew her own ability for happiness.

* * *

After a moment's rest, after she had collected herself, Hermione stood and made her way slowly down the stairs. It was astonishing, she thought again, how much she still _ached. _Malfoy Manor seemed a distant memory now, but months of undernourishment, running, and being cursed had her joints aching like Ron's Great-Aunt Muriel's must.

Hobbling in this way down the stairs, she paused in front of Regulus Black's old room and the sign that hung there: _Do not enter without the express permission of Regulus Arcturus Black_. R.A.B. How things had changed for them since they'd first heard those initials; now the sign, rather than poignant, seemed truly adolescent—like something she'd have hung on her own door if she'd had an older brother and a snooping mother.

Hardly thinking, Hermione pushed the door. Locked. "_Alohomora._" The door swung open, creaking, welcoming her in. She hadn't been in Regulus' room since she, Harry, and Ron had searched for the locket there months back, and the Slytherin propaganda on the walls made her wrinkle her nose in unconscious distaste, but she reexamined the room anyway: paging through books, poking the dusty bed, opening the drawers that Kreacher must have put back together with care after Snape had made a mess so long ago. It was odd to be there, standing in a dead person's room, looking through his things. It was like living in a textbook. _"Regulus Black, a hero in his own way…"_

Hermione shook her head. "Ron's right," she whispered to herself. "I spend too much time with textbooks." The thought made her smile unbidden and she had a sudden urge to go actually join this party—if nothing else, she could slip her hand in Ron's and be happy for his grip—and she was half turned around to leave the room when she spotted it.

It was a strange device of metalwork, about a foot tall. Crisscrossing straps of iron held two triangles tip-to-tip, the one on the top upside down, rather like an hourglass whose bottom and top were not connected. It was intricately worked and rather pretty, in a Victorian sort of way, but she had no idea what it was, and that in and of itself bothered her. Maybe it was a way to tell time? Perhaps there was a specific spell or incantation one had to mutter for it to work. She picked it up and found with some surprise that it was very light for its size. She turned it twice and tilted it to the side, trying to find some sort of slot or button, and when she put it down she felt foolish, a real Muggle-born. What Wizarding device would have a button?

Hermione put the thing down and made to leave the room. Out of all of the members of the Order of the Phoenix downstairs, someone would surely know what the device was for.

She was halfway to the door when she heard a small 'click' from behind her; turning, Hermione frowned at what she saw. The device was turning, the two triangles rotating by ninety degrees. Every time they turned, they clicked. Warily, she stepped towards the thing. Was it her imagination, or were the clicks getting faster? What had she done to set the thing off? Maybe it _was_ some sort of wizard clock, because the turns and clicks were getting even faster, about one per second.

Hermione stood for another moment, puzzling it all out in her head, before she realized with a start that the two triangles were turning too fast now to be measures of a second, revolving so quickly that the clicks had congealed into one long whirring sound. A bit concerned, Hermione stepped towards the door- maybe she could get Mr. Weasley to check it out, he would know what it was for-

-and then the triangles stopped turning and went back to their regular position. A pinpoint of white light appeared between the tips and grew larger as she watched in frightened fascination, grew in waves, white waves like those of a Patronus' shield form—

Hermione cursed none too quietly, panicking slightly, and she ran towards the door. The light was growing now, she could feel the heat of it on her back, singing her clothes, seeping into her skin-

-there was a tremendous sound, a sonic boom…

-she was screaming as she felt herself being pulled back, she heard herself shout for Ron and Harry in her fright…

-she heard a sucking sound and heard rather than felt herself leave the room…

-and then she heard nothing at all.

* * *

The first thing Hermione was aware of was the throbbing in her head. It felt rather like someone was performing the Cruciatus Curse only on her skull, for with every beat of her heart her temples screamed in pain and protest. The second thing she was aware of was a foul taste in her mouth. Her tongue felt thick from a lack of water, and her mouth was as dry as sand. The third and final thing that she realized was that she was in an enormous armchair, slung across it like she'd been dropped there.

Another wave of pain hit her and she groaned rather weakly, feeling for her wand with tightly-closed eyes so that she might be able to try and magically ease the pain in her head; as if in answer, a slightly familiar voice called to her from what seemed to be across the room. "Ah, so you've awoken."

Hermione's eyes shot open and her hand clenched over her wand. It couldn't be, it just _couldn't be_ who it sounded like- but it was, for there was Albus Dumbledore in front of her, standing behind his desk and watching her wake up with that perpetual gleam in his eye. She was in Dumbledore's office, the Headmaster's Study. In Hogwarts. And Albus Dumbledore, who was supposed to be dead, was smiling at her. She blinked in absolute shock for a moment or two before propping herself up in the chair so she sat straight. She licked her lips, swallowed, hesitated, and then spoke. "Professor… Professor Dumbledore?"

He gave her a mild look. "Indeed."

_It can't possibly be… _Jumping out of the armchair and riding the wave of pain that came with the sudden movement, Hermione pointed her wand at him. _Polyjuice potion?_ "Who are you?" she spat, fear high in her head, "And where am I?"

The man who was masquerading as Dumbledore raised his eyebrows and eyed her wand. "I hardly see the need to hex me," he said reasonably. "I am Albus Dumbledore, and you are in my office at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry—a fact that surprises me as much as it surprises you, I'm sure."

"What?" She kept her wand trained the imposter and mentally calculated the time it would take her to run to the door after Stunning him: five seconds. Enough, hopefully.

Dumbledore shook his head as if in regret. "You appeared here not two minutes ago, quite rudely replacing the Minister of Magic, who vanished from that armchair the moment you fell across it. Not," he added serenely, "that I bemoan his sudden departure. I confess I have little interest in his efforts to catalogue the creatures of the Forbidden Forest under Ministry jurisdiction."

"I—_what_?"

"My dear," Dumbledore said, standing from behind his desk, "it would not be a good idea to try hexing me. As talented a witch as you indubitably are, although I've never seen you before in Hogwarts, I have nearly a hundred years of magical experience that you do not." He paused; Hermione kept her wand pointed between those ever-twinkling eyes. "I must apologize for this."

"For—"

She stopped and nearly dropped her wand when she felt it: _Legilimency_. Her headache doubled; it felt as if cold fingers were taking hold of her brain and slipping between its folds. She saw in her mind's eye the strange hourglass device, the sign on Regulus' door, Harry's face in front of hers, Harry's body in Hagrid's arms, Dumbledore's grave, waking up to Ron's hand in hers, Sirius Black on a hippogriff, Viktor Krum leading her to dance, the sword of Griffindor shining in Neville's hand, and she knew that Dumbledore—because it must be Dumbledore, only he was such an accomplished Legilimens—was seeing what she had seen.

When he finished, he was quiet; he stared at Hermione unblinkingly, watched her breathe deep and shuddering breaths and renew her grip on her wand, although she no longer had it directed at his face. "Miss Hermione Granger, I feel as if I have a duty to let you know that you do not belong here."

Her mind felt impotent after Dumbledore's venture through her memories. "_I _don't belong here? Professor, you're supposed to be—"

"Dead, yes, I've seen," he interrupted with a wry smile. "No, I mean to say…" The old wizard moved from behind his desk for the first time and traced the fingers of his right hand, which was whole and fine, unblackened, uncursed, on a globe whose countries kept revising and reforming their boundaries and positions. "Well, Miss Granger, the best way to explain it might be to simply tell you that it is now January of 1978, and that everything I just saw in your head has yet to occur."

Hermione felt herself sink back into the armchair. Her head throbbed, a nasty lurching feeling; she felt she might vomit and thought madly for one moment about snapping her wand and throwing it out, renouncing this ridiculous world forever and returning to the Muggle world where, for all its faults, at least you were never unexpectedly thrown twenty years back in time. "That," she said, her voice weak, and she swallowed hard, realizing that she had no idea what she wanted to say—"that does nothing for my headache, Professor."

Dumbledore tapped a finger on the globe and the land depicted quickly placed itself, countries piecing themselves together, nations knitting their borders. "No," he said, frowning at it, "I should think not."


	2. II: Cippi

**A Word: **I restarted this story recently after a sudden resurgence in my love for Harry Potter, and especially my disappointment at the lack of good fanfiction out there depicting the real consequences of the war. Hopefully this eases some of you who have had similar experiences!

On pairings: this is first and foremost a character development piece focusing on Hermione, and as such most of it will be told from her point of view. The romantic involvements of this fic, then, will be both canon and absolutely not canon; Ron and Hermione are obviously together in the books, and of course I want to keep this story as cohesive as possible with them. But I am a sucker for Sirius, especially the idea of a teenage Sirius/Hermione pairing, and so there's going to be a great deal of that, as well. How it ends remains to be seen!

Reviews are always lovely; I appreciate any time you take to write one.

A disclaimer that applies to this entire work: I do not own anything about Harry Potter, and I'm glad I don't—I would've butchered it.

_II: Cippi_

There was a sudden bang, and Hermione was sure she was being attacked. She snapped open her eyes; yanking her wand from her jeans and sitting up straight in the chair, legs tensed to dodge or run, she surveyed the room, eyes flicking to windows, searching corners, scanning underneath futons and tables. She was not, she realized quickly, in the Headmaster's study anymore; no, she was still in the room that she, Harry, Ginny, and Ron had been talking in earlier. She must have—did she really dream that whole scene with Dumbledore? Her friends, she remembered, had vacated the room and it was now quite still; she was alone, _Hogwarts, A History _still tucked protectively in her spare arm, as if _it_ was the real target of attack, as she held the other out, wand aloft. Noise drifted to her from the open door to the stairs—it must have been a pot or pan hitting the floor, maybe someone slamming a door. There were no threats. Hermione took a breath. She was at Grimmauld Place, safely in 1998, and the war was over. No one would curse her here. "Have to keep reminding myself," she murmured, stowing her wand away again and snorting disparagingly at herself as she uncurled the book from its secure position in her other arm. Trust her to try and keep the damn thing safe while defending herself.

She glanced at her watch—how much time had gone by? How long had she slept?

_What was that dream?_

It had been only two minutes since Harry had left the room. Hermione tumbled ungracefully from the chair, putting the book on a coffee table and rubbing her right temple with two fingers. Her head still throbbed a bit, but it was not nearly as severe an ache as it had been in her dream after Dumbledore had delved into her mind. She'd never felt pain like that in a dream before. The whole thing had been incredibly realistic; in fact, it had been entirely too lucid for her taste. For a while she'd genuinely been frightened of the possibility of time travel, of having been sent to a past she had no business interrupting and no desire to experience. _Time-Turners wouldn't go that far back_, she reasoned to herself, so she supposed it was only natural that her brain had conjured some ridiculous magical object that could send her to the late 1970s, presumably just (although she couldn't imagine exactly why) to talk to Dumbledore. She felt herself frown as she moved down the stairs; the sounds of music and chatter led her past Regulus' room, at which she glanced curiously. Stopping in front of it, teetering on the landing as she considered the door, Hermione felt ludicrous for even thinking that she might check for the made-up device.

_I may have seen it when we were in the room before and just repurposed it in my head, I suppose…_

Worth a look, anyway.

"_Alohomora_," she muttered, pointing her wand at the lock; when she pushed at the door it stayed resolutely closed in spite of the charm, as if to prove her foolishness. Shaking her head, she stuck her wand in the waistband of her jeans again and continued down the stairs. Of course it was locked; Kreacher had probably taken every precaution within his power to secure the room of his favorite master after it had been thrown in such disarray, first by Snape and then by the three of them as they searched for the Horcrux.

The beginning of 1978—that would have been halfway through the Marauder's seventh year at Hogwarts, and right before the first peak of Voldemort's power. It made logical enough sense that she would have sent herself to that date in her dream: a perfect twenty years past, when the people she'd just been thinking about were her exact age. _Thank god, _she thought to herself, evidently still unable to shake the Muggle expression no matter how much she tried, _the dream didn't continue. _Living through Voldemort's first rise to prominence was not something she was particularly interested in attempting after so narrowly surviving his second.

* * *

"I know you all—we all—I know we all suffered tons of losses. I know good people died and I know you're all so tired, now, so exhausted. I know you all had—had _such_ hope and faith in me—in us, in each other—and I just—"

Harry stopped speaking for a moment, holding his glass high to a roomful of people and wishing fervently that he had collected his thoughts a bit better before attempting to make a toast to such a crowd. He gazed round at them: The remaining members of the Order, all battle-worn and fiery, standing all round Sirius' parents' enormous drawing room: among them was Minerva McGonagall, hair tightly wound behind her head as usual, barely able to suppress her pride as she watched him speak; Kingsley Shacklebolt, tall, arms crossed, looking powerful and, improbably, mentally untouched by recent catastrophe; Hagrid, beaming, whose head only just fit under the high ceilings of Twelve Grimmauld Place; Hestia Jones and Dedalus Diggle, obviously happy to see him alive and well and, Harry reckoned, probably cheered to be around wizards again after what their experiences with the Dursleys must have been like. Then Dumbledore's Army and other Hogwarts students: Neville, Luna, Dean and Seamus, Lee Jordan, Oliver Wood and the rest of the Griffindor Quidditch team, Hannah Abbott, countless others. Hogwarts teachers, Flitwick and Slughorn included, and even a couple centaurs that had fought with them. The Weasleys: Bill and Fleur with their arms around each other, Charlie crossing his burned and scarred arms, Percy with his hands on his mother's shoulders, Mr. Weasley with a hand on Percy's own, Mrs. Weasley looking at Harry with tears in her eyes, George smiling slightly and twisting a shockingly colorful tie, Ginny gazing at Harry in that fierce, blazing way that made his stomach feel as if it was warm and full; Ron, tall and thin and freckled and smiling lopsidedly at Harry's usual awkwardness at public speaking and then moving to the side slightly so that Hermione, who had just entered, could join him at the front of the crowd, and when she did he put an arm over her shoulders with uncharacteristic tenderness and she wrapped her arms around his chest, and the happiness on Ron's face made Harry feel like his heart might explode. Hermione looked at her friend with his glass upraised; he grinned at her, and she gave him a tired smile, her eyes dark. He realized that her collarbones stood out more than they used to, that she looked older, that her grip on Ron was rather looser than his was on her—it looked like Ron was supporting her to stand.

Suddenly, the words gushed out.

"I just know I wouldn't have been able to do anything without all of you. Everything you all did was… it was incredible. And I can't thank you enough. And I know it's hard to walk around and clear all the rubbish of this fight away and get on with things, so just please use each other for that, use me for that. It'll be just as much of a struggle to get past Voldemort as it was to finish him, but a good kind of fight, I think, a fight that actually builds things. So—really—I just—well, thank you lot. Again. Always. I just wanted to get you all together and say that." He paused again. "And as much as we've commemorated all of the deaths—" The absence of Remus Lupin and Fred Weasley hit him in the chest suddenly, a physical blow, and he coughed—"I want this toast to be to all of you. Just because you're survivors doesn't mean you did any less, any less at all—and I'm so bloody glad that I have all of you with me today that I need to drink to it." He raised his glass higher to all of them and drank deeply; whatever he was drinking burned him on the way down, invigorated him, made him feel a bit less of a rambling prat. The room reciprocated as Kreacher, who was standing proudly in the corner of the room, conjured glasses for each person; toasting Harry and each other, they drank and then applauded him. He saw McGonagall's eyes shine and looked away; he saw Ron's smile, still crooked, and had to turn around. Ginny pulled free of her family and he took her hand with his own right hand and her face with his left and kissed her, surprisingly (he realized) for the first time since Voldemort's fall, and when he stopped she was grinning so widely he felt fifteen and expectant again, Cho Chang approaching him under the mistletoe in the Room of Requirement.

As if on cue, Kreacher snapped and the music returned; the food that he and Mrs. Weasley and Fleur had prepared appeared on trays and plates all around the parlor and the surrounding rooms, and the Order of the Phoenix dispersed from their single body, hugging each other and smiling, and Harry stood there staring at Ginny, smiling at her like a fool, a bit weak in the knees at this strange and new feeling of being safe and content in a place he could safely call his own home.

Hermione was still thinking of spinning triangles when Ron grasped her firmly by the elbow, shaking her out of her daze. "Hey, you," he said gently, "'Mione, are you alright? You're, er—kind of limp."

She snatched her arm back and unwound herself from around his torso; Ron looked momentarily worried that he'd irritated her. "I'm fine, just exhausted still," she answered truthfully, "and I've got the worst headache."

"There's got to be a spell for that, yeah?" Ron turned, looking over the crowd. "I know Mum's around here somewhere, she can—"

"No, really! It's fine, you don't have to bother her now," Hermione interjected, exasperated and amused at his eagerness to please. Ron turned back to her with a sheepish face, perhaps realizing how he was doting on her, and she couldn't help but laugh a bit.

"Awright, you don't have to laugh," the Weasley huffed. "Why're you so thoughtful, anyway? You looked like you'd gone off."

In a split-second decision and for no discernible reason, Hermione decided to lie. "I keep thinking I have to go back to Hogwarts and finish school, get my N.E.W.T.S. My parents would be furious if they knew I dropped out. _When_ they know I dropped out."

Ron laughed in disbelief. "Reckon they'll forgive you, considering."

"But all the explanation—do you know how hard it'll be to explain Horcruxes to Muggle parents? 'Oh, yes, Mum, and when I stabbed the cup a bit of Voldemort's soul flew out, that's right, but we still had to behead a snake and drop a tiara into the maws of an enormous fire'—brilliant, right, they'll understand everything."

"That… that's a fair point," Ron conceded, chuckling. "But you haven't even found them yet, so there's still loads to figure out before how to tell—" Hermione had pressed her lips together subconsciously; he saw her eyes take a dark cast at the mention of her only sketchy understanding of her parents' whereabouts. Frantically, "Here—" he snatched a sandwich from one of Kreacher's trays. "You should eat, you look bloody terrible." He winced instantly.

"Charming as always." Hermione was giving Ron that withering look he was so familiar with, which for whatever reason reassured him more than any smile would have. He smirked at her and shrugged. "Well I reckon now I can always win you back by talking about elf rights, so charm's not really my problem here."

The withering continued, but he took it as a good sign when she at least accepted the food, and he was pretty sure she was fighting down a smile that looked to be originating at the right corner of her pretty mouth. "Honestly, Ronald, I'm not a prize to be won. Attitudes like that are what—"

Ron's freckles congregated at the corners of his eyes when he smiled, and he chucked her chin like she was eleven, freshly turned out of the Hogwarts Express for the first time, successfully shutting her up as her eyes flashed with shock and fury at being treated thus. "There's the Hermione Granger I was looking for," he remarked in mock-wonder.

She scoffed audibly and rolled her eyes, shouldering herself away from his touch and maneuvering towards McGonagall, who was in conversation with Hestia Jones—but as her back was turned, the right corner of her mouth lifted in full, and she smiled softly as Ron watched her go, gazing at the slope of her shoulders as she marched away from him. How many times had he watched Hermione walk away in a huff? He threw a napkin at her head and was rewarded by a smoldering glare and a flick of her wand; the napkin smacked him in the face with at least three times as much force as he'd thrown it. Ron laughed with delight.

"There she is again!"

* * *

"Miss Granger?"

_so tired_

"Hermione Granger?"

_tired_

_please leave me_

_so tired_

_please just let me be_

"_Ennervate._"

Hermione's eyes fluttered open to find blue hovering over her. Professor Dumbledore stepped back at her awakening, a hand on his mouth in a familiar gesture of thought. "Curious," he said.

She surveyed her surroundings—the Headmaster's study again, the armchair again, although this time, thankfully, the headache was gone. Hermione sat up; Dumbledore was wearing the same robes he had been before. No time had passed? When did she—_oh, right_. "Professor," she said carefully, "this is a dream."

"That's precisely what's so curious," he agreed with a small smile, seemingly unconcerned at this pronouncement. "A dream which to you is unreal, a sleep-life, and which is waking life for me—or, at least, for the Dumbledore of your mind, which for all intents and purposes is as much me as the Dumbledore in mine. Or at least, I'd think so."

Hermione shook her head, confused and far too exhausted to deal with it. "No, Professor, this isn't a dream I want to have." She stood. "I don't want—I'm sorry, it's just so difficult to see you—like this."

That serene smile was almost chilling. "Alive?"

Hermione said nothing.

Dumbledore paced, his long robes sweeping around his ankles as he did so. "What is interesting," he told her, "although you already are aware of this, is that this is not a _recurring_ dream; you see, even from my point of view, we have not started over our conversation. It has continued rather than repeated, and there has been no break in my time with you. You spoke about your headache and then fell asleep, or fainted, in the chair; fifteen seconds passed, and then when I Ennervated you, you awoke. Presumably you were awake in your future world at that time? And doubtless," he added before she could answer, "experienced much more time than the fifteen seconds you were asleep to me here."

Hermione shook her head again in disbelief. Dream-Dumbledore was setting out to be quite as confusing a man as the Dumbledore she knew from life. "Yes, I was awake," she muttered, "I went downstairs to the party and had a conversation with Professor McGonagall, and afterwards I read with Harry and Ron, and then I went to—I went to sleep, I fell asleep. And I apparently started dreaming."

"And you're quite sure you're not awake now?"

Hermione let out a little "buh" of vexation. "Well of course, Professor, I—"

He held up a hand. "How does it _feel_ here, Miss Granger?"

How did it feel? Her hands flexed when she moved them; she could feel the chill of the January morning on her face from the patch of sky glimmering through Dumbledore's window to her right; her body looked the same as it did in life. She felt for the scar on her neck; it was there. She took a breath; her ribs expanded accordingly. There was, admittedly, none of the usual feelings that dreams entail—everything was sequenced and regular—there was nothing like the floaty feeling of being separated from oneself that usually came with dreaming. "I _feel_ awake," she admitted, frustrated by this fact. "But I know that it's not 1978, Professor, not for me. I have no memories of anything happening—here. You were right, I don't belong."

"So why are you here, even in your dreams? Why come to this time, why come to me?" It was a rhetorical question, and he didn't wait for an answer. "Miss Granger, I know you've seen war very recently."

She gave a dry chuckle. "Too recently for me to want to dream about these years, Professor. I know who's here, I know what happens. When I wake up, I'm going to have to… I don't know, get Muggle sleeping pills, visit St. Mungo's, talk to Professor McGonagall, see if I can stop this somehow. It's lovely to see you, Professor, in my head and all of that, but I'm afraid I can't…" _Handle it. I can't handle this._

Dumbledore did not look at her; he had circled round to his Pensieve and was peering into its depths. After a moment of silence, he stirred the stuff with his wand. His voice was a bit gruff. "I think, Miss Granger, you may have trouble evading these dreams." At her questioning glance and opened mouth, he lifted a finger. His tone was pleasant once more. "But we shall see. You can certainly try!"

"I can _try_? Professor, this is all in my head! Surely…"

"The Muggle sciences," he said quietly, "have discovered incredible things about the nature and power of the mind, have they not? It may be difficult to accomplish anything if you're fighting against yourself."

Hermione stood from the armchair. She felt a knot in her stomach grow tight. "I'm going to wake up in—I don't know, however many hours, Professor, and I'm not going to have these dreams anymore after I do. This is—this must be some sort of accident, a completion of a dream I never finished. An anomaly."

He was still looking at her so kindly, so compassionately; she thought she might cry, which was absurd, because, as she told herself rationally, she was imagining every part of this scenario. None of it was real. _None of this is real._ "Until you have the chance to get rid of me, then," Dumbledore said (and smiled at her passionate "No, that's not at all what I—!"), "would you care to accompany me on a tour around the grounds? I doubt they are all that different from twenty years in the future, but the cold air may help me think, and of course the students are back from holidays. You may want to spend the remainder of your time in 1978 outside of my study."

Hermione couldn't help herself from giving her old Headmaster a skeptical look. "Walk the grounds, Professor?"

He chuckled. "I, for one, find cold air to be refreshing and the Hogwarts grounds to be beautiful this time of year. If you'd be so kind as to lower that lovely left eyebrow of yours, Miss Granger, you may remind yourself that if this is a dream for you, and a realistic one, you may as well enjoy it. I myself would be honored to have the company of a lovely young future witch as I stroll."

Trust Dumbledore to make her feel like an inconsiderate fool in her own dreaming of him. Rather flabbergasted and with cheeks reddening, Hermione tore her gaze from those kind blue eyes. "I—why not?—I mean, of course, Professor—the grounds are always lovely, and, er—I would love to."

"Why not, indeed?" he exclaimed jovially, grabbing his cloak with surprising agility (_He's twenty years younger_, Hermione thought, and then rolled her eyes at herself: _No part of this is real!_) and conjuring a spare for Hermione at the same time. She slipped it on gratefully. The soft gray wool on the inside was necessary; she realized for the first time that was still dressed for a 1990s summer. Of course her mind wouldn't take care of that. "And we journey forth!" Dumbledore cried.

Hermione followed the headmaster down the spiral stairs from his study, recalling suddenly her trip down the stairs to Regulus' room. Dumbledore was correct—this _was_ a continuation. Her dream had begun in Grimmauld Place, with the mysterious object. How odd that this dream was so linear, so chronologically sensible. How odd that she'd generated a magical object such as the triangle device out of nothing—that her brain had created a means and an excuse for time-travel when she had no idea in real life how to do it and no desire to try. "Professor, would you mind waiting a moment?" she asked suddenly, and Dumbledore obliged by stopping at the bottom of the staircase, still smiling at her like he knew what was on her mind and was waiting for her to figure it out. He put his hand on the gargoyle that guarded the entrance to his study and watched her as she frowned in concentration. Could she generate such a thing now? Focusing hard—she remembered for a moment the "Destination, Determination, Deliberation!" of her Apparition test—Hermione tried to will into being a sweater. She pictured it in her head: soft, knit tightly by the capable hands of Mrs. Weasley, cream-colored, warm, folded neatly in her dresser at Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place. Unfolded—hanging, the sleeves longer than the body. On her person, covering her arms, pricking the back of her neck. The sleeves rolled up so that half her arm felt the cold. Pressing against her stomach in the wind. Cozy against her cheek as she brushed hair out of her face.

She opened her eyes: nothing.

She looked at Dumbledore, flushing. "I'm sorry, Professor, I wanted to see if I could use this dreaming to my best advantage." She gestured to her bare arms. "A sweater. Just to see if I could."

The Headmaster nodded. "I would have tried a pair of socks, myself," he told her gently, "but I'd be a dishonest man if I told you I'm not in the least surprised that that did not yield what you expected."

"But why?" Hermione blurted, a bit perturbed that he hadn't said anything prior and then doubly perturbed that she kept attributing Dumbledore's actions to himself—_none of this is real! This is in my head._

Professor Dumbledore gestured for her to accompany him as he began walking swiftly down the long stone corridor of the 7th floor, heading towards another staircase so that they could reach the grounds. "Though this dream undoubtedly belongs to you, Miss Granger, it does not seem to respond to your conscious will. You do not wish to be here, and yet here you are; you would prefer to be wearing a sweater, and you stay in the clothing you arrived in; you would rather me be more direct and give you definite answers to the questions you ask, but alas, I simply have none for you, and you cannot by virtue of dreaming _make_ me have them."

Hermione considered this as they continued to follow the stairs. Some students wandered the hallways, talking and laughing, a couple frantically reading essays on long scrolls of parchment or textbooks, using their wands to levitate the reading in front of them as they walked. Hermione felt a curious constriction in her chest as she watched them pass by; never had she so keenly felt the loss of her seventh year at Hogwarts. Whenever students noticed that the headmaster walked in their midst, they flashed smiles or bowed their heads in respect, all greeting him, "Afternoon, Professor Dumbledore," or "Professor! Hello," to which he would reply with a dip of his chin and a twinkling eye cast in their direction. Then they would notice Hermione, walking so closely to him and in such strange attire; she wrapped the cloak around herself and kept her gaze on the walls, drinking in the familiar insides of the castle with great gulping sweeps of her eyes. It was blessedly, beautifully similar; she half expected to see Harry and Ron running towards her, puzzled and in need of answers or excited, going up the stairs three at a time, ready to share with her some story or idea. It instilled a strange longing in her, this image—in some ways she felt she'd outgrown Hogwarts and its patterns of class and work and library and common room and secret passage and Hogsmeade and Ron and adventure, and still she wanted it all back, she wanted to fold up this place and keep it with her to peek into when she could, when she wanted to go back to the time in her life when she had never seen someone die, when her greatest dangers were trolls in bathrooms and basilisks in the bowels of the castle. It all seemed very small now that she was part of a generation of Hogwarts students who would always see the thestrals that pulled the carriages that took young witches and wizards to a school that had seen a siege.

"It's very unpleasant, actually," Hermione responded at last, quietly, "to feel so clear and present in a dream and find you have no power over what happens there."

Professor Dumbledore nodded as they approached the great doors leading to the courtyard behind the castle and beyond. "I would imagine it," he said, not mockingly, "to be rather like being awake."

The doors opened for them and Dumbledore's stride slowed as they made their way outside. Hermione was struck by the cold at once and smiled at its force, watching her sandal-clad feet make prints in a recent dusting of snow that covered the courtyard. The sky was a hard sort of blue, a winter's clear sky, and the sun glimmered palely, leaning towards the west and barely caressing Hermione's face with enough warmth to counter the biting January cold that was so familiarly icing her toes. A Hot-Air Charm fixed that and cleared the packed, accumulated snow in front of them as she and Dumbledore strolled onto the grounds proper, for which the headmaster gave her genteel thanks; but besides that interaction they walked in silence. Hermione had a sneaking feeling Dumbledore had taken her outside to comfort her; the grounds were truly beautiful, reminiscent of nearly every winter of the past seven years. Everything she could see was coated in sparkling white, and the tracks of students slogging through the snow to and from the Black Lake and the greenhouses. The windows of Hagrid's hut glowed a comforting orange and Hermione could picture the scene perfectly: Hagrid sitting by the fire with a mug of something in his giant hands, petting Fang or doting on some newly-procured illegal creature in a cage that it would surely break out of within the coming days. So many people seemed to just _belong_ at Hogwarts, to linger here in her mind—Dean and Seamus would be throwing snowballs, and Fred and George, as well; Ron and Harry would be in the Gryffindor common room with her, grudgingly doing their homework under her supervision until it was time for them to go have tea with Hagrid; Neville would be in the greenhouses all evening, experimenting with the Venomous Tentacula until his return later on, bruised and happy with whatever inane observations he'd made about the plant.

Hermione glanced towards the lake, where the White Tomb would someday be, and watched a group of older students charm snow into forming a rather unflattering portrait of Argus Filch. Professor Dumbledore, stopping next to her and following her glance, chuckled. "Ah, yes. Youthful exuberance—and rejection of authority. Every year."

She thought of so many nights sneaking around hallways under the Invisibility Cloak—a Hallow used for pranks and subterfuge. By the lake, the snowy face of Filch was being divided into balls, and the charmer, a tall, dark-haired boy, waved his wand menacingly. His friends got up quickly, laughing; as the dark-haired boy directed the snowballs with his wand, two of the others scampered. One was smart enough to use a Shield Charm, but a sudden bombardment had him falling backwards into the snow—the other two ran to help him and were promptly smacked in the face with ice. They were shouting and guffawing, slipping around in their Hogwarts robes.

Hermione's heart swelled—she couldn't quite explain the happiness and deep, deep loss she felt traversing these grounds. "Professor," she said, turning to him, "thank you for this, really, it's lovely."

"Nonsense," he replied, raising his voice slightly as the shouts of the students by the lake got louder and closer, "Hogwarts is always yours to walk if you wish it. Even in dreaming."

Hermione gave a dry laugh at this. "I just—"

A sudden hit at the back of her neck had her stumbling forward; before she realized that it was only a snowball, she pivoted neatly on one foot and reflexively shouted, "_Expelliarmus!_" at the only person she could see whose wand was up, the dark-haired boy who continued to pelt his friends.

His wand went spiraling out of his hand; Hermione grabbed it out of habit, and he turned angrily to see who'd Disarmed him. "Oi, what's the deal?"

Hermione flushed and glanced at Dumbledore, who all of a sudden was standing some distance away and looking peacefully at an owl circling overhead as if he had no clue what was happening. "You—I wasn't expecting—you should take a care to aim!" she huffed, knowing she sounded defensive.

One of his friends—the one who'd cast the Shield Charm—laughed at that and brushed himself off. His hair, long and light, was sopping with cold water; the other boys were struggling to free themselves from the snowbank.

The dark-haired boy scoffed and folded his arms. "You should relax," he retorted. "I didn't hex you, I hit you with snow. My apologies for icing your pretty little neck."

Her temper rose. Why was she dreaming up an arrogant miscreant? "My pretty little neck," she replied coldly, "is quite fine without your apologies, thank you. Do you want your wand back or not?"

He looked angry, incredulous. Hermione felt herself blush redder at his gaze. "What, are you thinking of keeping it? Who the hell are you, anyway?"

Dumbledore chose this moment to intervene at last, calling from his distance: "This, Mr. Black, is Hermione Granger—a guest of mine."

His long-haired friend raised his eyebrows, and the dark-haired boy glanced at Dumbledore in shock. "Professor!—Er… hello," he finished lamely.

"Hello," Dumbledore responded amicably. "Miss Granger, I understand you've been done a great disservice, especially given your present attire, but if you wouldn't mind returning Mr. Black's wand…?"

Hermione's sigh poorly disguised her frustration. Embarrassed, she held out the stranger's wand. "Yes, of course, Mr. Black, here's your—"

She stopped, blinked, mouth open; her suspended arm, which the dark-haired boy and been reaching for, fell by her side at the moment he tried to grasp his wand, and his fingers closed over air, at which he shot her an irritated glance that she barely noticed. How could she not have realized it before? Standing in front of her, carelessly handsome, with longish black hair and gleaming gray eyes and the sort of stance she'd always associated with pureblood wizards, was Sirius Black.

"My wand, yeah, that's it," he said, pointing at it and grinning mockingly. "D'you fancy giving it back? I promise," he said in mock piety, "no more threats to what is, truly, an outstanding neck."

Hermione had to forcibly remind herself that she was dreaming, that it was 1978, that that of course Sirius Black would be here, that of course it was him making the snow into Filch's face. "Oh, shut up," she said wearily, handing him the wand, "I already Disarmed you, you don't have to flatter me."

The boy with lighter hair, who laughed again, was quite obviously Remus Lupin: a younger, handsomer, fresher Lupin than she'd ever seen before. His robes were shabby but his face was bright in the company of his friends. And the two others, who were now walking towards them from the snow, were Peter Pettigrew, that mousy face, how could she forget it, and—she drew in a breath—James Potter, essentially Harry's exact twin except for something around the mouth and—of course—the eyes. She turned to Dumbledore as if in supplication and knew she must look wild; she could barely keep herself together, she felt as if all the atoms of her body were shaking with suppressed tears. The Marauders. Here and alive and looking at her. Frantically, she turned back to them, wanting to embrace them, scanning over their young and beautifully rosy faces. Her eyes landed on Sirius again last and he seemed to take notice of the fire in her staring; surprised, he twirled his wand in his fingers and ran a hand through his hair. "What's the occasion for your visit, then, Miss Granger?"

Hermione couldn't help but give a throaty laugh; how to explain? How in the world to say that he wasn't real, that he lived in her mind and there alone, and that the real Sirius Black was dead and beyond the Veil, drifting somewhere, that they were all dead, that she was standing in the company of the deceased and—

* * *

Her eyelids were heavy but opened despite that, as if against her will, and it took her a fair bit of time to adjust to the darkness of her bedroom in Grimmauld Place compared to the stark whiteness of a snowy Hogwarts. She waited, then, as her room materialized out of the blackness: the dresser in the left-hand corner and the window, drapes drawn but for a crack of moonlight that fell on the lower half of the bed, on the wall to her left; the bathroom across the way; the door in the right-hand corner that led to the third-floor hallway; the table next to her bed where _Hogwarts, A History_ lay next to a glass of water and a hair tie, all where she'd left them. Her watch read 3:34 AM.

She felt paralyzed—the young faces of Peter, Remus, James, and Sirius floated in her mind's eye, so alive, and for a moment she thought she saw Sirius smirking at her from the foot of the bed, but of course that was nothing, wishful thinking, really—cruel that she dreamt of them, cruel of her mind to take her to 1978 and cruel of Bellatrix Lestrange and Voldemort to have taken the Marauders' lives like they were taken, coldly and without, really, a second thought, and without honor in Peter Pettigrew's case, without recognizing their strong handsome faces—

In 1978, James Potter had only three more years to live—

And Hermione lay silently in a borrowed bed, staring at the ceiling, drained and incapable of closing her eyes once more, terrified both of sleeping and staying awake.


End file.
